


Your House

by seratonation



Series: Not Dead [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: The Siege, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-03
Updated: 2008-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonation/pseuds/seratonation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t a surprise the four of them stuck together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your House

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go out to [](http://ferret-kitty.livejournal.com/profile)[**ferret_kitty**](http://ferret-kitty.livejournal.com/) , my awesome beta, and [](http://angw.livejournal.com/profile)[**angw**](http://angw.livejournal.com/) for supplying the name of the bar that SG-1 used to hang out at. This fic fought me every step of the way, I hope we got to a good compromise.

Earth was not what they had expected. The streets were too loud, the smells too chocking, and the people too unaware. 

 

It wasn’t a surprise the four of them stuck together. 

 

They had taken to sitting in their booth at O’Malley’s after ‘work’, not wanting to be too far from the gate. They knew that eventually they’ll have to leave Colorado to do the Earth related things they had to do, but for that first week they were content to sit in their booth and drink to a better Atlantis.

 

On the sixth day back, Elizabeth told them that she was going to see Simon in two days, and Carson said that he’ll be flying out to see his mother tomorrow night. They all had to start choosing the extended expedition members in one week’s time. 

 

Nobody mentioned that tomorrow was the day the higher ups decided what to do with John.

 

Elizabeth had turned out to be a quiet drunk. She’d drink bottle after bottle and hardly anything would change; she’d slouch a little, her eyes would become a little less focused, but her voice would never slur. Carson, on the other hand, never drank more than one bottle a night (except on that first night, when they all drank so much that the last few weeks on Atlantis became a blur). 

 

That’s why he offered to drive Elizabeth home tonight, despite her insistence that she was fine; she could find her way, really. 

 

“Come on,” Rodney said to John once the others were gone, “we should get you home.” 

 

“Can’t,” John said, looking at his bottle. “Home is’n a different Galaxy.”

 

“I know,” Rodney said, “but we can’t stay here.”

 

“No,” John agreed, still inspecting his bottle, swaying it this way, then that way, “can’t stay here.”

 

“So let’s go.”

 

“Don’t wanna go home alone,” John said, now looking into the bottle as if it contained the secrets of the universe. 

 

Rodney blinked, never mind that John had contradicted himself, he also said he didn’t want to be alone, which went against everything Rodney knew about the man. 

 

“It’s ok, I’ll go with you,” Rodney said before he can stop himself. 

 

John shook his head. “Don’t wanna go home,” he said.

 

“Where _do_ you want to go?” Rodney asked.

 

“Take me back to your house,” John blurted. 

 

“What?” 

 

“Please?” and finally John looked at him, and Rodney didn’t like what he saw. Desperation. Loneliness. Loss.

 

Rodney swallowed and nodded. “Of…of course.”

 

“Thanks buddy,” John said, sagging back down. “You’re a good friend.”

 

That word stabbed at Rodney and he couldn’t figure out why, but he pushed it aside. He had other things to worry about.

 

“Come on then,” he said standing up. His head spun, or maybe it was the floor that swayed. How many has _he_ had to drink? Too many, apparently.

 

He waited for everything to still then put a hand on John’s elbow, pulling him up and out of the booth and swinging John’s arm around his shoulder so he could lean on Rodney. He told the bartender to put everything on the tab (he didn’t care which one) and they walked out.

 

John dozed on the taxi ride to the apartment, with his head resting on Rodney’s shoulder. The driver gave Rodney a sympathetic smile, which he ignored. 

 

As John struggled to get over the one step to Rodney’s apartment, Rodney thanked the Ancients that he lived on the ground level, and then wondered when he’d started to see the Ancients as Gods.

 

He was taking off John’s shoes when he heard a mumble about feeling sick, so Rodney quickly directed him to the bathroom and rubbed (what he hoped) were soothing circles on John's back through the worst of it. Then when John was up to it, he finished undressing him and put him in bed, all with John looking at him with wide eyes.

 

“You know,” John mused as Rodney placed two paracetamol tablets on the night stand, “Ford was a good kid.”

 

Rodney nodded as he placed the glass of water next to the tablets. “Yeah, he was.”

 

“You’ll find him, right?” John’s eyes were already closed.

 

“ _We_ will,” Rodney said, brushing John’s hair out of his eyes, “you and me and Teyla.”

 

“Hmm, we will…” he mumbled and drifted off to sleep.

 

Rodney placed a waste basket next to the bed, a change of clothes on the chair, and went to sleep on the couch.

 

***

 

The next morning John woke up slowly. He hasn’t felt this bad since… he tried to remember but that just made his head hurt more. He did the visual assessment that he usually did when waking up in strange places. 

 

The room was spacious, and blissfully dark, the sun only making it around the edges of the heavy curtains. The walls were plain; the desk only had a neat pile of papers in the middle and a lamp in the corner. He shifted his eyes closer to the bed, there was a glass of water and a couple of tablets that he hoped were painkillers on the nightstand. 

 

He sat up and took the pills, chasing them down with the water. When he swung his legs over, his ankle hit what looked like an empty trash can. He stood up slowly, only now realising that he was in nothing but his boxers, but the bed didn’t look like it had had another occupant, so he relaxed, but only slightly. He walked over to the desk and found a pile of clothes on the chair, not his, but they’ll do. As he put them on, he read the post-it on the papers. Dr. McKay. That’s all it said. And suddenly a flash of memories attacked him. Sitting at O’Malley’s, stumbling up a step in the dark, cool fingers on his forehead, thinking that Rodney didn’t get why he had gone up there in the first place, that he’d only done it because he had nothing to lose that he hasn’t already lost, and all the while, a mantra, as clear as a bell. Love you, love you, love you. 

 

He flinched. He couldn’t remember if he’d said it or not. He hoped it hadn’t freaked Rodney out.

 

He walked down the hall and found the kitchen, Rodney already awake and cooking. He took one look at John and snorted. 

 

“You look like crap,” he said.

 

“Gee thanks, McKay,” he drawled back. Everything felt normal so far. He walked in to sit at the counter and Rodney took a closer look at him. It made him feel uncomfortable so he rubbed his face with both hands and tried to fix his hair a little.

 

“Scratch that,” Rodney said, “You look hung over.”

 

“I _am_ hung over,” he said, resting his head on the cool counter top, then a thought crossed his mind, a non-threatening thought. “How did I get here?”

 

“We caught a taxi,” Rodney said, going for the easy answer. “How much do you remember?”

 

John cast his mind; the painkillers were doing their job, because it didn’t hurt as much, “Carson said something about visiting his mom, after that it’s all just flashes.”

 

“Not much then?” Rodney said, turning back to the frying pan.

 

“Guess not.”

 

There was silence for a while, and it was grinding at his nerves; it wasn’t like Rodney to be this quite, something was defiantly up. So he decided to take a leap.

 

“Rodney?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Did I say anything out of the ordinary last night?” 

 

Rodney hesitated, “Well, you weren’t thinking straight, so we’ll just pretend you never said anything ok?”

 

“No, no, I meant it all, all I said,” he said, getting up and going around to stand in front of Rodney.

 

“Fine, you meant it.” And his blue eyes were hard, blocking him out. This was not what he had expected.

 

“Wait a minute, what did I say, exactly?”

 

“Well let's see, you said Ford was a good kid, you wanted to come home with me, and that I’m ‘a good friend’” he said, air quotes and all. “Is that all I am– all I was to you? A good friend, your fuck buddy? Because let's face it, if we did have something, as you so eloquently put it, you wouldn’t have gone up there, so maybe you should just leave. You can keep the shirt. I never like that one anyway.”

 

“Rodney,” he said carefully, holding Rodney’s biceps so he wouldn’t leave, “I don’t think any one has called you this before, but, you are a big idiot,” and Rodney’s look of surprise was more of a relief than he’d like to admit. “I went up there because I had already lost you, don’t you see? If we had all survived by some miracle that didn’t include me flying up there, they were going to send me back anyway, I would have lost you, and Atlantis, and everything else I had, and I couldn’t imagine living back here when I knew what was up there, I figured it was worth it to save you and your big city.”

 

Rodney finally relaxed underneath his fingers, and he wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It’s _your_ big city, you’re her golden boy,” he said, but there was a smile tugging at his lips. 

 

“We’ll see,” he said, letting go of Rodney, and stepping back, remembering what today was.

 

“We will,” Rodney said, poking at his chest. “You’ve done more for the expedition than anyone else; they’d be morons if they didn’t let you go back.”

 

“Thanks Rodney,” he said, his tone completely different than before.

 

“And if they don’t, well then we’ll just sneak you back in one of the boxes.” 

 

John laughed, he couldn’t help himself. Seeing an echoing grin on Rodney's face, he pulled the other man into a kiss. 

 

"Just make sure you punch some air holes for me," he said, and kissed Rodney again. 

 

The end


End file.
